Thoughts on conversion

 

Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 14:25–33

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that a disciple must carry his own cross and follow him. All of us sinners tend to see the universe turning around our ego, our needs, our projects, our plans, and our likes and dislikes. True conversion—the metanoia that Jesus talks about—is so much more than moral reform, though it includes that. It has to do with a complete shift in consciousness, a whole new way of looking at one’s life. Jesus’s teaching must have been gut-wrenching to his first-century audience: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” His listeners knew what the cross meant: a death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. They knew it in all of its awful power. If God is self-forgetting love even to the point of death, then we must be such love. The cross, in short, must become the very structure of the Christian life. This is just what Jesus shows on his terrible cross. And this is just what we, his followers, must imitate. Taking up the cross means not just being willing to suffer but being willing to suffer as he did, absorbing violence and hatred through our forgiveness and nonviolence.  Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on All Souls Day

 

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day)

John 6:37–40

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about raising us on the last day. Our faith is that God will clothe the soul in a new and higher body, what Paul calls a “spiritual body.” Here we might rely on the musings of John Polkinghorne, the Christian physicist, who appreciates the soul as the “form” or pattern of the person. God remembers this “form” and then reconstitutes it at a higher level during the resurrection, much as the pattern of an article or a photograph could be preserved in a computer’s memory and then reproduced in a new way. Listen again to the words of Jesus in our Gospel today: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” As you pray for the souls of your beloved dead, take comfort in those words. They will be raised again.  Bishop Robert Barron Prayer for All Souls' Day ‌ Dear God of mercy, We pray this day for all souls, both known and unknown to us, who, although touched by death, have not yet entered your heavenly kingdom. Lord God, by the precious blood which Jesus, your divine son, shed upon the cross this day, deliver the souls in purgatory, particularly those souls nearest to us and for whom we should pray, that they may come quickly into your glory, to praise and bless you forever. Grant them eternal rest, oh Lord. Amen.

Thoughts on the Beatitudes

 

Solemnity of All Saints

Matthew 5:1–12a

Friends, our Gospel for today is one of the most beautiful and important in the New Testament: the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the eight Beatitudes. Why is it so important? Because it is the Son of God telling us how to be happy. It is the one who can’t be wrong telling us how to achieve that which each of us most basically wants. What could be more compelling? At the heart of Jesus’s program are these Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful” and “Blessed are the peacemakers.” These name the very heart of the spiritual program, for they name the ways that we participate most directly in the divine life. One of the most important words to describe God in the Old Testament is chesed (tender mercy). The New Testament version of this is found in the First Letter of John: God is agape (love). Everything else we say about God should be seen as an aspect of this chesed and this agape. Chesed is compassion; agape is willing the good of the other. Therefore, if you want to be happy, desire to be like God. Do it and you’ll be happy. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on hardened hearts

 

Open Hearts

From: Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

When I relate to my past with remorse, shame, or guilt, the danger is that I will harden my heart and be unable to discern the divine presence within and without. When my heart is hardened, it is closed, unavailable, and cold. A hardened heart is a heart in which remorse has turned into morbid introspection, shame into low self-esteem, and guilt into defensiveness. When I keep thinking about myself and my motivations, constantly comparing myself with others and trying to defend my behavior, I am becoming more and more self-centered, and the divine love diminishes in me…. Awakening to the presence of Christ can heal the wounds of my memory. Opening our hearts to the divine presence in the present moment, thus transforming our emotions and healing our memories, is a great challenge of the spiritual life. The memory of the image of God in the soul can turn my stone heart into a heart of flesh, making it flexible, receptive, open, and free.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”   - Ezekiel 36: 26

Thoughts on the apostles

 

Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Luke 6:12–16

Friends, today’s Gospel recounts Jesus selecting and appointing the apostles. Bible scholar and theologian N. T. Wright has explained why Jesus commissioned twelve disciples as apostles. Wright tells us that when a first-century Jew spoke of the arrival of God’s kingdom, he was taken to mean something very specific. He was announcing that the temple was going to be restored, that the proper worship of Yahweh would obtain, that the enemies of Israel would be dealt with, and that, above all, the tribes of the Lord—and through them, the tribes of the world—would be gathered. Recall the great vision from the second chapter of Isaiah: “The mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest mountain. . . . All nations shall stream toward it.” This is why Jesus chose twelve disciples, evocative of the twelve tribes. They would be the prototype and the catalyst for the gathering of Israel and hence the gathering of everyone. They would be the fundamental community and sign of unity. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on prudence

 

Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 12:39–48

Friends, in today’s Gospel, the Lord urges his disciples and us to be prudent servants, following his ways in anticipation of his coming again. Theologians often call prudence the queen of the virtues because it is the capacity to reign sovereignly over one’s life, both ordering one’s inner powers and directing one’s affairs wisely in the outside world. Prudence is that sure touch, that moral instinct that renders one capable of making the right decision under pressure and in the face of complex circumstances. Prudence is a sort of accumulated theoretical and practical wisdom, a know-how that is for the most part instinctual, in the bones. When placed in the Christian context, therefore, prudence is a feel for how Jesus would react, how he would think, how he would move in a particular situation. It is tantamount to having one’s soul gathered around Christ as its center, so that all one’s actions are informed by Jesus and his way of being in the world. Christian prudence comes from apprenticing to Christ—that is to say, moving with him, watching at close quarters how he lives and moves and gestures. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on shame

 

Converting Shame to Compassion

From: Discernment: Reading the Signs of Daily Life

Remembering Christ transforms remorse into contrition, for “a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:17 NSRV). Remembrance of Christ converts shame to compassion, which allows us to reach out to others who share our struggles. And the memory of Christ prevents guilt from overwhelming us and makes us receptive to forgiveness. The memory of Christ is thus a healing, spiritually therapeutic memory. By remembering my life and struggles in the light of Christ's presence, my past is redeemed and can become an occasion for thanksgiving and praise.

“My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.”   - Psalm 51: 17